The Problem of the Day

Volume X - Sufi Mysticism

The Path of Initiation and Discipleship

Four Kinds of Discipleship

There are four kinds of disciples, of whom only one can
be described as a real disciple. One kind is the disciple
of modern times, who comes and says to his teacher, 'We
will study this book together,' or, 'Have you read that
book? It is most interesting,' or, 'I have learned from
someone else before, and now I would like to learn what
I can from you, and then I will pass on to something which
is still more interesting.' Such a person may be called
a student, but not yet a disciple. His spirit is not that
of a disciple; it is the spirit of a student who goes from
one university, from one college, to another, from one professor
he passes into the hands of another. He may be well suited
for such intellectual pursuits, but the spirit of the disciple
is different.

Then there is another type who thinks, 'What I can get
out of him I will get. And when I have collected it, then
I shall use it in the way I think best.' Well, his way is
that of a thief who says, 'I will take what I can from the
purse of this person, and then I shall spend it for my own
purpose.' This is a wrong attitude because spiritual inspiration
and power cannot be stolen. A thief cannot take them. If
he has this attitude, such a disciple may remain with a
teacher for a hundred years and still leave empty-handed.
There are many in this world today who make intellectual
theft their occupation; anything intellectual they find,
they take it and use it. But they do not know what harm
they do by this attitude. They paralyze their minds and
they close their own spirit.

Then there is a third wrong tendency of a disciple: to
keep back something which is most essential, namely, confidence.
He will say, 'Tell me all you can teach me, all I can learn,
give me all that you have.' However, in his mind he says,
'I will not give you my confidence, for I do not yet know
if this road is right or wrong for me. When you have taught
me, I shall judge, then I shall see what it is. But until
then, I do not give you my confidence, though my ears are
tuned to your words.' This is a third wrong tendency. As
long as a disciple will not give his confidence to his spiritual
guide, he will not get the full benefit of his teaching.

The fourth kind is the right kind of discipleship. This
does not come by just thinking that one would like to go
on the spiritual path, or that one would like to be a disciple,
a mureed, a chela. There comes a time in every
person's life when circumstances have tried him so much
that he begins to feel the wish to find a word of enlightenment,
some counsel, some guidance, a direction on the path of
truth. When the values of all things and beings are changing
in his eyes, that is the time he begins to feel hungry for
spiritual guidance. Bread is meant for the hungry, not for
those who are quite satisfied.

If a person like this goes in search of a teacher, then
he takes the right step. However, there is a difficulty.
If he wants to test the teacher first, then there is no
end to the testing. He can go from one teacher to another,
from the earthly being to the heavenly being, testing everyone,
and in the end, what will he find? Imperfection. He is looking
for it, and he will find it. Man is an imperfect being,
a human being, a limited being. If he wants to find perfection
in a limited being, he will always end up being disappointed
with whoever he meets, whether it is an angel or a human
being. If he were simple enough to accept any teacher that
came his way and said, 'I will be your mureed,' then
it would be easier, although this is perhaps not always
practicable.

Someone asked a Brahmin, 'Why do you worship a god of
rock, an idol of stone? Look, here I am, a worshipper of
the God who is in heaven. This rock does not listen to you,
it has no ears.' And the Brahmin said, 'If you have no faith,
even the God in heaven will not hear you; and if you have
faith, this rock will have ears to hear.'

The middle way and the best way is to consult one's own
intuition and inspiration. One's intuition may say, 'I will
seek guidance from this teacher, whether he is raised high
by the whole of humanity, or whether he is looked at with
contempt and prejudice by thousands, I do not care.' Then
one follows the principle of constancy in adhering to that
one teacher. But if a person is not constant on the spiritual
path, he will naturally have difficulty in the end. For
what is constancy? Constancy is the reflection of eternity.
And what is truth? Truth is eternity, and so in seeking
for truth, one must learn the principle of constancy.

The disciple has to have full confidence in the teacher's
guidance, in the direction that is given to him by the teacher.
The Buddhists who regard a spiritual teacher with great
reverence say, 'We do not care whether he is well-known
or not. Even if he is, we do not know if he will accept
our reverence. If he receives it, we are not sure he needs
it.' Worship can only be given to those whose presence we
are conscious of; and it is especially intended for the
spiritual teacher, for he shows us the only path that frees
us from all the pains of this life. That is why amongst
all other obligations involving earthly gain and benefit,
the obligation to the spiritual teacher is the greatest,
for it is concerned with the liberation of the soul on its
journey towards Nirvana, which is the only desire of every
soul.

The teacher does not always teach in plain words. The
spiritual teacher has a thousand ways. It may be that by
his prayers, he can guide his disciple. It may be that by
his thought, his feeling, or his sympathy, even at a distance,
he may guide him. Therefore, when a disciple thinks that
he can be taught only by words or teachings, by practices
or exercises, it is a great mistake.

In order to get the right disciples and the right people
to come to him, a Sufi who lived in Hyderabad made a wonderful
arrangement. He got a grumpy woman to sit just near his
house; and to anyone who came to see the great teacher,
she would say all kinds of things against the teacher about
how unkind he was, how cruel, how neglectful, how lazy.
There was nothing she would leave unsaid. As a result, out
of 100, 95 would turn back, they would not dare to come
near him. Perhaps only five would come wanting to form their
own opinion about him. The teacher was very pleased that
the 95 went away, for what they had come to find was not
there, it was somewhere else.

There is another side to this question. The first thing
the teacher does is to find out what the pressing need of
his disciple is. Certainly, the disciple has come to seek
after truth and to be guided to the path of God; but at
the same time, it is the psychological task of the teacher
to give his thought first to the pressing need of his disciple,
whether the disciple speaks of it or not. The teacher's
effort is directed towards removing that first difficulty
because he knows it to be an obstacle in the disciple's
way. It is easy for a soul to tread the spiritual path because
it is the spiritual path that the soul is looking for. God
is the seeking of every soul, and every soul will make its
way naturally, providing that there is nothing to obstruct
it. So, the most pressing need is the removal of any obstruction.
Thus, a desire can be fulfilled, it can be conquered, or
it can be removed. If it is fulfilled, so much the better.
If it is not right to fulfill it, then it should be conquered
or removed in order to clear the way. The teacher never
thinks that he is concerned with his disciple only in his
spiritual progress, in his attainment of God. For, if there
is something blocking the way of the disciple, it will not
be easy for the teacher to help him.

There are three faculties which the teacher considers
essential to develop in the disciple: deepening the sympathy,
showing the way to harmony and awakening the spirit of beauty.
One often sees that without being taught any particular
formula or receiving any particular lesson on these three
subjects, the soul of a sincere disciple will grow under
the guidance of the right teacher, like a plant that is
carefully reared and watered every day, every month, and
every year. Without knowing it himself, he will begin to
show these three qualities: the ever-growing sympathy; the
harmonizing quality increasing every day more and more;
and the expression, understanding and appreciation of beauty
in all of its forms.

One may ask, is there no going backwards? Well, sometimes
there is a sensation of going backwards, just as when one
is at sea and the ship may move in such a way that one sometimes
has the feeling that one is going backwards, although one
is really going forwards. One can have the same sensation
when riding on an elephant or a camel. When in the lives
of some disciples this sensation is felt, it is nothing
but a proof of life. Nevertheless, a disciple will often
feel that since he became a disciple he finds many more
faults in himself than he had ever seen before. This may
be so, but it does not mean that his faults have increased;
it only means that now his eyes have opened wider so that
every day he sees many more faults than before.

There is always a great danger on the spiritual path
that the disciple has to overcome – he may develop a feeling
of being exalted, of knowing more than other people, of
being better than other people. As soon as a person thinks,
'I am more,' the doors of knowledge are closed. He will
no more be able to widen his knowledge because automatically,
the doors of his heart are closed the moment he says, 'I
know.' Spiritual knowledge, the knowledge of life, is so
intoxicating, so exalting, it gives such a great joy, that
one begins to pour out one's knowledge before anyone who
comes along as soon as this knowledge springs up. But if
at that time the disciple could realize that he should conserve
that kindling of the light, reserve it, keep it within himself
and let it deepen, then his words would not be necessary
and his presence would enlighten people. As soon as the
spring rises and he pours forth what comes out of that spring
in words, although on the one side his vanity will be satisfied,
on the other side his energy will be exhausted. The little
spring that had risen, he has poured out before others and
he remains without power. This is why reserve is taught
to the true disciple, the conserving of inspiration and
power. The one who speaks is not always wise; it is the
one who listens who is wise.

During discipleship, the first period may be called the
period of observation. In this, the disciple, with a respectful
attitude, observes everything good and bad, right and wrong,
without expressing any opinion about them. Every day this
reveals to the disciple a new idea on the subject. Today
he thinks it is wrong, but does not say so; tomorrow he
wonders how it can be wrong. The day after tomorrow he thinks,
'But can this really be wrong?' On the fourth day, he may
think that it is not wrong, and on the fifth day he may
think that it is right. He may follow the same process with
what is right, if only he does not express himself on the
first day. It is the foolish who always readily express
their opinions; the wise hold their opinions to themselves.
By holding their opinions back, they become wiser every
day; by expressing their opinions, they continually become
less wise.

The second thing that is most important for the disciple
is learning. How is he to learn? Every word the disciple
hears coming from the lips of the teacher is a whole sacred
book. Instead of reading a sacred book of any religion from
beginning to end, he has taken in one word of the teacher,
and that is the same. By meditating upon it, by thinking
about it, by pondering upon it, he makes that word a plant
from which fruit and flowers come. A book is one thing,
and a living word is another. Perhaps a whole book could
be written by the inspiration of one living word of the
teacher. Besides, the disciple practices all the meditations
given to him, and by these exercises, he develops within
him that inspiration, that power which is meant to be developed
in the disciple.

The third step forward for the disciple lies in testing
the inspiration, the power that he has received. One might
ask, how can one test it? Life can give a thousand examples
of every idea that one has thought about. If one has learned
from within that a certain idea is wrong or right, then
life itself is an example that shows why it is wrong or
why it is right.

If a person does not become enlightened, then one can
find the explanation by watching the rain. It falls upon
all trees, but it is according to the response of those
trees that they grow and bear fruit. The sun shines upon
all the trees, it makes no distinction between them. However,
it is according to the response that the trees give to the
sun that they profit by its sunshine. At the same time,
a mureed is very often an inspiration to the murshid.
It is not the murshid who teaches, it is God who
teaches. The murshid is only a medium, and as high
as the response of the mureed reaches, so strongly
does it attract the message of God.

The mureed can be inspired, but he can also cease
to inspire. If there is no response on his side, or if there
is antagonism or lack of interest, then the inspiration
of the murshid is shut off; just like the clouds
which cannot produce a shower when they are above the desert.
The desert affects them; but when the same clouds are above
the forest, the trees attract them and the rain falls.

The attributes of the disciple are reserve, thoughtfulness,
consideration, balance and sincerity. Special care should
be taken that during the time of discipleship, one does
not become a teacher; for very often, a growing soul is
so eager to become a teacher that before he has finished
the period of discipleship he becomes impatient. It should
be remembered that all the great teachers of humanity, such
as Jesus Christ, Buddha, Muhammad and Zarathushtra, have
been great pupils; they have learned from the innocent child,
they have learned from everyone, from every person that
came near them. They have learned from every situation and
every condition of the world. They have understood and they
have learned. It is the desire to learn continually that
makes one a teacher, and not the desire to become a teacher.
As soon as a person thinks, 'I am something of a teacher,'
he has lost ground. For there is only one teacher: God alone
is the Teacher, and all others are His pupils. We all learn
from life what life teaches us. When a soul begins to think
that he has learned all he had to learn and that now he
is a teacher, he is very much mistaken. The greatest teachers
of humanity have learned from humanity more than they have
taught.